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The Democratic Alliance calls on all competing factions in the set-top box (STB) controlled access issue to unite behind Cabinet’s approval yesterday of amendments to the Broadcast Digital Migration Policy.

For too long our ambitions to bridge the digital divide to deliver high-speed, ubiquitous wireless broadband to support eGovernment and fuel economic growth, for example, to all South Africans has been held hostage by powerful competing corporate and institutional agendas to control the broadcasting sector and unduly profit from the government’s subsidised STB programme.

These narrow interests must now be set aside for the national good and their energies and talents should be directed at fast-tracking a responsible, well-managed and transparent process to deliver subsidised STBs to those who qualify so that the analogue spectrum can be released for digital communications requirements as soon as possible.

But I note with concern that the Cabinet statement refers to government providing ‘free’ STBs to five million households. The plan is for STBs to be delivered to identified poor households and these will be subsidised on a sliding scale, depending on the total household income.

I await to see the full details of the revised policy to understand whether the five million STBS will indeed be free. If this change has been made then the available finance, of which there is already a shortfall of R1,9 billion, will be totally inadequate to the task.

I also call on government, as the sole shareholder of the South African Broadcasting Corporation, to take appropriate legal steps to nullify clause 4.3.1 in the controversial SABC-MultiChoice deal of 3 July 2013 whereby SABC bucked government policy by agreeing that SABC programmes flighted on its Digital Terrestrial Platforms would not be subjected to a controlled access system.

This deal was negotiated by SABC acting (at that time) chief operations officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng and rubber stamped by the SABC’s interim board led by Ellen Tshabalala and, months later, endorsed by the current board. It came into force as former Communications Minister Yunus Carrim took over from sacked Dina Pule and he was unable to persuade the board to review or cancel the deal.

The entities of the Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services (DTPS) that are charged with managing the production, distribution and support of DTT and the subsidised STBs must now be allowed to rapidly proceed with their tasks without further interference from warring Cabinet Ministers and politically backed meddling.

South African governments’ abilities to offer improved service delivery through e-Government systems and the nation’s economic ingenuity through using a world-class digital communications systems must now be unleashed.

Issued by DA